Why reunification with Taiwan is hard-wired into Chinese people’s psyche
- When China was a unified empire under the Qin and other dynasties, it was strong, prosperous and prestigious. But when it was fragmented, its people suffered
- China insists on reunification with Taiwan because the present status represents an aberration to its narrative that national unity begets national greatness
Scotland’s parliament cannot hold a second referendum on independence without the approval of the parliament of the United Kingdom, the UK supreme court ruled last week, a ruling that angered supporters of Scottish nationhood.
Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s pro-independence first minister, accused Westminster of showing “contempt” for Scotland’s democratic will. “This ruling confirms that the notion of the UK as a voluntary partnership of nations, if it ever was a reality, is no longer a reality,” she said.
Besides Scotland, there are other secessionist movements worldwide.
Many in the francophone province of Quebec have been seeking independence from Canada for decades.
In Spain, Basque separatism used to be synonymous with terrorism, but the movement has since eschewed violence.
A century-and-a-half ago, the United States fought a four-year civil war to bring the breakaway southern states back into the union.
In Malaysia in June, the sultan of Johor warned that his state could secede from the federation if the central government continued to treat it like a “stepchild”. His threat wasn’t taken seriously and no more was said.
Half a century ago, Singapore did secede from Malaysia. It was not without acrimony but it was a mutually agreed parting of ways, and the two countries have since enjoyed close and friendly ties, the occasional hiccups notwithstanding.
Most nations are not formed with an eye on a disintegrated future, which is why the constitutions of most countries, even ostensibly democratic ones like the US and Canada, do not contain clear provisions for the secession of their component parts.
The first Chinese democracy was quite the success. It just wasn’t in China
The idea of a unified China has been hard-wired into the psyche of the Chinese nation for such a long time that any notion to the contrary is repellent to ordinary people living in China today, and deemed seditious and illegal by the government.
By “such a long time” I mean centuries, even millennia.
The long and continuous history of the Chinese nation is witness to alternating cycles of unity and disunity. The opening lines of the historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, set in the eponymous period (AD220-AD280), summed it up well: “The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide.”
The conventional interpretation of China’s past is that the recurring wholeness and fragmentation corresponded to the waxing and waning of national fortunes.
When China was a unified empire under the Qin and Han, the Sui and Tang, the Song and the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, the nation was strong, prosperous and internationally prestigious.
Conversely, when China was fragmented, its people suffered because the nation was weak and plagued by internecine warfare and foreign invasions.
China could have had a monarch today if not for one backtracking empress
That happened during the great divide that lasted over 350 years from the third to the sixth centuries; the 50 years between the end of the Tang and the founding of the Song; and the first half of the 20th century following the Qing’s demise.
Regardless of its merits and historical veracity, almost everyone in China subscribes to this deep-seated notion with almost religious fervour: that a united China ruled by a single central government is the default position from which the nation must not digress, lest it descends into anarchy, with catastrophic consequences for the people.
This notion informs China’s insistence on reunification with Taiwan because the present status of the self-governed island represents an aberration to China’s self-narrative that national unity begets national greatness.
To the Chinese government and people, this aberration must be set right, even if it means war.
